We gotta talk. Because we got a problem. And when I say we, I mean you. You got a problem.
So, I’ve been writing these articles lately about how to actually design good D&D adventures. And I told you that when you outline an adventure, you should focus primarily on putting good ideas to paper and not worry much so much about rules and mechanics. I said we’d make that s$&% work when we got to it. And then people got really excited. I know. Because when people get excited, they send me lots of e-mails and messages. Kind of like how when dogs get excited, they start peeing all over you. And people got especially excited over the idea that I was going to “make the rules work” for all sorts of crazy s$&% like “making a dangerous climb down a cliff” and “protecting a town from some monsters.”
While those people were peeing all over my e-mail inbox, other people were busily busting their bladders over a comment I made about how D&D used to have rules for pursuit and evasion. There was a comment thread about it. And I got a bunch of e-mails about how I would handle that mechanically in D&D 5E. Especially how I would handle the “transition out of combat initiative,” whatever the hell that means.
Honestly, this isn’t new. I get a lot of questions about mechanics and rules. And specifically, how I’d design specific mechanics and rules for this or that specific compelling encounter. And when I say specific encounter, I mean any specific encounter that isn’t a combat. “Angry, how can I mechanically design a good non-combat wilderness obstacle,” they ask. Or, “Angry, how would you design the rules for a mine cart chase.” And don’t even get me started on that social mechanic bulls$&% people just won’t shut up about.
Don’t get me wrong; I love systems and rules and mechanics. I’ve made that pretty damned clear. I love them as much as I love strong, well-constructed narratives. Which makes me weird as hell in the gaming space, because I exist pretty much at the dead-center mid-point between the extremes of ‘gamist’ and ‘storyist’ or whatever the f$&% those idiots all call themselves these days. And man, does that ever confuse the gamers who feel the need to issue death and rape threats at anyone who isn’t on their side. But I digress.
I love systems and rules and mechanics. But I also hate them. And that’s pretty much the healthiest relationship you can have with them. But this ain’t about me. It’s about you. It’s about how you love rules and mechanics too f$&%ing much. How you’re a mechanics junkie. And how you jones for mechanics so bad that you can’t game without them.
That’s right. This is an intervention. Because you’re hurting your game, you’re hurting your players, and you’re hurting yourself. And I care about you. Well, I don’t really. But that’s the sort of thing you’re supposed to say when you intervene. And that’s why I’m going to show you exactly how this addiction is hurting you. And then I’m going to show you how you’re using mechanics to fill a void in your gaming life that you didn’t know you had. One that I probably should have mentioned sooner.
So, okay, my bad.
Why You Don’t Need Encounters
In a couple of weeks, I’m going to disappoint you. Because I’m at the point now in my newly resurrected Practical Adventure Building Guide where I’m actually going to build some encounters. And once I start doing that, I know I’m going to get a lot of comments saying, “that’s IT?! What the actual motherloving f$&% is this, Angry?! This isn’t an encounter! This is nothing!” And, you know what? That stuff actually hurts. I’m a real person with real emotions and I wish you wouldn’t feel like you had to swear at me just to get your point across. What the f$&% is wrong with you?
One upon a time – when I was younger and more naïve – I posted a series of articles about building encounters. And I built this really cool chase encounter. Remember? The players had to run down some dude in the streets. And I talked about things like dramatic questions and decision points and structural elements and s$&% like that. I told you how to plan all that s$&% out. And, look, I’m sorry. I didn’t know the damage I was doing. I see now how badly I led you astray.
I convinced you that you need that s$&% to run a good encounter. And you don’t. Well, you do. But you also don’t. It’s complicated.
Let me try to clear this up with an example. In the adventure I’m building as part of the Practical Guide, there’s an encounter where the players have to climb down a cliff into a gorge to reach an abandoned mine, right? A lot of you are really excited about that one. You all e-mailed me to tell me how you couldn’t wait to see how I’d handle it. And that confused the s$&% out of me. Because it’s a climb down a cliff into a gorge. As encounters go, it’s pretty damned straightforward. I mean, sure, I was going to have to add a few bells and whistles to make it work as a climactic encounter, but even that wasn’t going to make it a brilliant masterwork of mechanical encounter design. Because it doesn’t need mechanical design. It’s just a cliff. D&D’s mechanics and the basic rules of being a GM already have all the stuff you need to make it a compelling encounter built-in.
All you need to do to design a compelling encounter about climbing the cliff is to specify the height of the cliff, the steepness of the cliff, and then give the players a reason to climb it. The players, the GM, and the games’ rules will handle everything else. But I still had people assuming I was going to design some kind of stamina system or grip meter ala Legend of Wander: Breath of the Colossus or something. Because, how can you have a compelling encounter without a whole bunch of complicated rules that take five hours to design and fifteen minutes to use one time and then forget about forever? THAT’S a great use of your adventure-design time.
Okay, there’s obviously a LITTLE more to the cliff challenge than just the height and steepness of the cliff. But there’s not MUCH more. Basically, I envisioned the party arriving at the top of a gorge in the rocky hills north of town. Below them, a dry riverbed runs through the center of the narrow valley. At the head of the dry river, where a waterfall used to plunge down into the gorge, there’s the entrance to the mine.
Something like that. Just without the water. And without the electrical power lines. And not quite as high. Maybe a third as high. 90 feet is good. That cliff is about 270 feet high. I know because that’s Snoqualmie Falls in Washington state. That’s the waterfall featured in the opening of the old Twin Peaks TV show. And I’ve been there. It’s really cool. I even hiked up to the top of the waterfall and didn’t die.
So, that’s a 90-foot descent down a pretty rough cliff. Well, partly down a rough cliff and partly a sheer drop because of the overhang. But if the players don’t like the look of that drop, maybe they can scout along the gorge a bit for an easier climb. Maybe they can find a place with a more favorable descent. Maybe a place with a slight outward slope to the rockface and with a couple of relatively flat, narrow ledges where a climber can take a rest and break up the climb. Or maybe catch himself on when he falls. That’d make it a bit easier.
And that’s it. I just designed a whole encounter for you. I mean, I guess I could specify some DCs. Maybe the single climb is hard (DC 20) and the other one is a series of three average climbs (DC 15). But I really don’t need to say that given how I described it. I figure any GM who’s been reading my site for any length of time – that is any GM who knows how to do his f$&%ing job – can already run the encounter from the information I provided. They shouldn’t need any extra rules or systems.
Just like I figure any GM should be able to handle a party running away from some monsters in a dungeon without a special set of rules in the Player’s Handbook.
Now, that isn’t to say special rules and systems can’t make it easier to run the encounter. That s$&% can help. The problem is it usually doesn’t help as much as it hurts. But I’ll get to that later. But people tend to equate mechanics with depth. When they don’t see a bunch of extra rules, they assume the encounter is too shallow and too simple to be interesting. What they’re missing is emergent depth.
Look at the cliff scenario again. Imagine your four players have just reached the top of the cliff and they need to get down. One or two of those characters might have a decent Strength score and one might even be trained in Athletics. That character might be willing to attempt to free climb down the rockface, but what about everyone else? Because everyone has to get down alive.
Maybe the party’s lucky enough to have several ropes they can tie together and maybe they have some pitons to anchor the rope. Or they can tie the rope around a tree or boulder. That would make a hard climb average and an average climb easy, but that’s still a lot of Strength (Athletics) checks and a lot of chances to fail. Assuming you give any character that falls the benefit of the doubt and assume they fall at the halfway point, that’s 5d6 damage to anyone who flubs the check. That’s an average of 18 HP of damage, but it could be as high as 30 HP. And if the first PC to make the climb is also the first one to splatter himself, he’s going to be making a lot of death saves while someone with a potion of healing tries to figure out how to get down there fast enough to save him.
If all the players do is go by the rules and make a bunch of climb checks, the encounter is totally doable. And, at the table, it’s actually pretty damned tense. I know. I’ve run this exact encounter at my table before. On paper, it looks like “just make a couple of die rolls to succeed,” but that ain’t how it plays. As long as the GM runs it well and doesn’t let the players run roughshod over things by substituting Dexterity for Strength or make climbing down the rope automatic or require twelve checks of each player or any stupid bulls$&% like that.
When tends to happen – what’s supposed to happen – is that the players realize that some of them just aren’t equipped for this problem. And then the party starts looking for ways to mitigate the risks and maximize their odds. Anchoring some ropes because it’s easier to climb down ropes than cliff faces, for example. Ropes aren’t sure things. We all took gym class. But they help. And the feather fall and levitation spells are sure things. Good for the players who have those options. They win. They get to steamroll the encounter with their amazing magical powers.
Lots of GMs mistake that for shallowness. But it isn’t. The fact that some encounters can be completely trampled by clever players with the right resources is actually a source of depth. Remember, depth is the number of different ways a given thing could play out depending on the choices the players make and the skills and resources they bring.
Can an agile player scrabble down the easier climbs on their a$&%, sliding from ledge to ledge? Can the players rig up a rudimentary harness using the wizard’s backpack and some rope so they can lower Rasitlin’s skinny a$& down and spare him trying to climb with his feeble chicken arms? Can the warlock cast guidance on each character in turn before they make the climb? Can the cleric climb down first and be ready with healing spells in case anyone else falls? Can everyone just jump down and rely on the cleric to heal their broken bodies at the bottom? For that matter, can the party avoid the climb altogether by following the gorge through the wilderness to where it emerges in the lowlands and then walk back up the dry riverbed along the bottom of the gorge?
The answer to all of those questions is a resounding yes. At least, it should be if you’re worth a damn as a GM. And that’s the point of a role-playing game. Well, one of the three points of a role-playing game. That’s the agency point. The players are faced with an obstacle and they have to decide – freely – how they deal with it.
Now, I don’t think any of my readers are questioning any of that at this point. “Of course the GM should be prepared to resolve any workable plan the players might come up with! Who doesn’t agree with that s$&%? That’s GMing 101, day one, lesson one, Chapter 1: Action Adjudication.”
So what the hell am I actually going on about then? Well, I’ll tell you…
Drowning in Mechanics
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During my interactions with gamers – and during my lurking non-interactions on various forums, social media channels, comment sections, and even in my supporter Discord – I’ve noticed that there’s a huge preoccupation with how to design encounters mechanically. How to design rules, systems, and structures that facilitate the running of this or that encounter. Especially this or that non-combat encounter. Because, as everyone knows, the D&D rules don’t give you any useful tools to build anything other than combat encounters.
And I’m pretty sure I haven’t helped this problem. Because, in articles like that chase encounter one I mentioned above, I definitely tend to err on the side of mechanical overdesign. And I definitely have a flair for rules and systems and mechanics. But there’s “designing a simple, GM-facing mechanical tool half-off-the-cuff” and there’s overdesigning the motherloving f$&% out of an encounter. And I’m seeing a lot of people cross that line. And that ain’t good. Because D&D already gives you everything you need to run any kind of compelling, non-combat encounter you want. You can make things easier by designing special mechanics, but if you convince yourself that you NEED them, you have a dependency problem.
Look: I can safely design special mechanics for a chase encounter because I know that I can run a really fun chase encounter without any special rules completely on the fly. And I can also safely use those special mechanics because I know exactly how they hurt my game, how they hurt my players, and how they hurt me. So I use them in moderation and I have the good grace to hide my mechanics from my players. But I’m not so sure you can say the same.
To be clear, what I’m talking about here are prescribed mechanical systems for resolving encounters. And those things come in lots of shapes and sizes. They can be simple and innocuous like a progress tracker or one of my Whatever Stats. Something the GM keeps hidden behind the screen and uses quietly to decide when the encounter is won. They can be more complex win-lose mechanics like the old “accumulate X successes before you fail Y times,” that the GM may or may not keep hidden. They can include rigid structures like initiative rules and turn orders and action economies. And they can include complex subsystems like giving each player three stamina tokens and requiring a Constitution saving throw whenever they take a particularly exhausting action to see if they lose one. And they can also include prescribed actions that you define like spells. For example, a sprint action that allows a player to make a Strength check to get a sudden burst of speed at the risk of a stamina token. Or a lunge action where the player wipes out their grip meter completely to try to jump to the top of the thing they’re climbing, all-or-nothing style.
Apparently, that sort of s$&% is what most GMs think encounter design is all about. After all, combat has a bunch of s$%& like that, and combat is deep and exciting. So that s$&% must make all encounters deep and exciting.
Now, as I said, I use some of those sorts of systems myself. But I mostly follow some pretty strict rules when it comes to designing mechanics like that. For example, any mechanic I’d have to explain to the players is probably bad. And any mechanic I can’t keep in my head is probably bad. And any mechanic that took more than five minutes to come up with is probably bad. And the reason I have those rules is that I know I don’t need those mechanics. I can live without them. I can quit them at any time.
Do I really a sprint action? Do I really need to spell out that, during this particular chase scene, a character can spend an action and risk a stamina token to increase their speed by 30 feet per round for one round and therefore cover 3 extra squares on the chase board? Hell no. When a player says, “I’m going to go all out and sprint after the guy as fast I can,” I just need to ask myself whether that could succeed and whether it could fail and whether there’s any cost associated with failure. Yes, a dude can certainly put on a short burst of speed to cover a lot of ground really quickly. But that sort of speed can’t be sustained for more than a few seconds. The dude might not be able to catch his quarry before his legs and lungs give out. And that means he might actually end up slowing down and sucking wind, effectively losing ground instead of gaining it. “Okay, dude,” I say, once I’ve settled that in my mind, “give me a Strength (Athletics) check and we’ll see whether you catch up, gain ground, exhaust yourself and lose ground, or pull a hamstring and collapse.” Any GM who can’t do that s$&% has no business running games. Sorry.
Now, I can make my life easier by deciding ahead of time that sprinting is a thing and that it’s an average Strength (Athletics) check and the outcomes include catching the target, gaining ground, losing ground, and tearing a meniscus. But that’s just pre-adjudicating the action. I know the action is likely to come up, so I decide in advance how I’ll handle it. It’s nothing I can’t do at the table.
But is there a good reason NOT to do that? I mean, why not just decide it ahead of time? Prescribing actions and designing mechanics can’t actually hurt the game or the players or the GM, can it? CAN IT?!
Of f$&%ing course it can. That question is such a transparent rhetorical device, isn’t it?
First, there’s the obvious cost. Designing that mechanical s$&% takes time and creative effort. Lots of it. I know because I watch people doing this s$&% all day in my patron-only Discord server. For hours. Now, if that’s how you want to spend your game prep time, that’s on you. But I’ve got better things to focus my energy on. Hence why I reject any mechanic I can’t design in five minutes.
Apart from that, though, there’s a bias problem. All of these mechanics actually create biases in your brain. And the problem with biases is that you can’t see your own biases. You don’t even know they’re there, let alone what they’re doing. And the more you think you’re aware of your own biases or immune to bias, the more they work on you. And I do mean YOU. I mean everyone. Because this is how brains work and this is how your brain works. And your brain lies to you about how it works so you don’t ever see how it works.
Prescribed mechanics bias you toward using them and bias you against not using them. And they bias you against doing anything else too. When you have a specific mechanic – particularly one you put a lot of time and energy into designing – you want to use that mechanic. It’s only natural. If it’s just a small thing – like a sprint action you pre-adjudicated – the bias is just going to make you nudge the players into using it. Or sometimes, it’ll make you decide that other actions aren’t actually possible enough to be worth a die roll. I s$&% you not. It does happen. Reminding players they could try to sprint isn’t so bad. You shouldn’t do that s$&% too often, though. Let players win or lose on their own. If they can’t figure out a good plan, they haven’t earned the victory. But biasing you against player creativity is bad.
And if the mechanic is more rigid or more complex, you won’t just push it into the game and push other stuff out the game, you’ll also try to push other stuff into the mechanic. You’ll end up letting the mechanic run the game. For example, if you have a neat chase tracker and a player proposes casting dimension door or using their cloak of the mountebank to teleport-tackle the foe, you might just push them ahead a couple of spaces on the chase tracker instead of recognizing the teleport-tackle could – and should – probably just end the chase instantly.
The thing is, most GMs already have this insidious thought in their mind that goes, “I can’t just let the players shut down the encounter with one clever action; they have to earn the victory.” But players figuring out clever ways to use their resources to end complex encounters in one fell swoop IS earning a victory. It’s the ultimate way to earn the best victory in a game that’s all about making choices.
Well, the more mechanical tools you have in front of you and the more you’ve invested in designing those tools, the more you demand of the players before you concede that they earned the victory. And deep inside in the secret recesses of your GMing brain – the dark place where you secretly celebrate your victory every time a PC dies – there’s a little kernel of resentment for players who try to circumvent your brilliant mechanical systems with their clever plans. You worked hard on that s$%&. Your players are sure as hell not going to ignore it.
Rigid mechanics make rigid GMs. The rules of the game are supposed to exist solely to resolve in-world events whose outcomes are uncertain. They shouldn’t be getting involved in what is or is not possible and what the actual possible outcomes are.
Rigid mechanics also make rigid players. That’s why I rarely – almost never really – use encounter mechanics I have to explain to the players. I know that if I hand the players a list of three special actions they can use during the chase, they’re sure as s$&% going to choose one of those three actions every turn. Most of their brains won’t even be able to see any other possibilities. When you give people a list of possible solutions, their brain switches from “looking for a solution” to “evaluating the existing solutions looking for the best one.” That’s just how our brains are wired. Creativity takes more brainpower than evaluation and assessment and the brain is a lazy thing. Just look at how hard it is to get players to ignore their skill lists.
In short: overdesigned, prescribed mechanics bias your brain against player agency and bias your players’ brains against creativity. And those things have some pretty serious long-term effects. The more you rely on mechanical assistance from the system, the more your own adjudication skills atrophy. They’re like muscles. They go bad. And it can get to the point where if you don’t have a mechanical framework, you just can’t run an encounter at all. Which means you can’t do anything on the fly. You just freeze up or panic. Meanwhile, the players lose their creative problem skills because they’ve gotten used to the fact that every solution is already on a piece of paper in front of them. Either it’s on their character sheet or it’s in the rules.
And the longer this s$&% goes on, the worse it gets. You lament the fact that the players just want to declare skills and roll dice to victory. And they aren’t really engaged by the mechanics you keep inventing. So you assume you’re designing your encounters wrong or your mechanics are faulty. You work harder to build more depth and more mechanical complexity into your encounters. And you find your game prep becoming more of a chore. Does any of this s$&% sound familiar?
Why You Do This to Yourself
Now that I’ve convinced you that you’ve got a problem, you’re probably wondering how you let things get so bad. You don’t understand why you couldn’t see the damage your addiction to mechanics was doing. Well, I’m going to let you in on a few secrets.
First, despite everything I said above, that climbing encounter is not REALLY where I’d stop designing. I mean, it’s perfectly serviceable as a wilderness encounter. It’d lead to a fun twenty minutes of exciting adventure at the table and it might even seriously injure or kill a PC, which is always good for a laugh. And even if it got resolved immediately by a wizard who actually wasted spellbook pages on feather fall, it’d still be fun for a few minutes. But, by itself, it sure ain’t no climax encounter. And that’s because something IS missing.
Second, something IS missing from most encounters. When I said that D&D has everything you need to run any non-combat encounter ever, I meant that you can resolve anything with your brain and with the right mix of ability checks. And I stand by that. What’s missing – what you’re missing – isn’t actually a matter of systems and mechanics and encounter design. It’s actually a matter of how you run encounters. And it’s my fault that you’re missing it.
Third, this is all my fault. I’m taking the blame. I decided a long time ago it was my job to teach you how to do this GMing s$&%. And I failed you. I let my love of systems and mechanics show through a little too much. And meanwhile, I completely failed to teach you two very important things about running encounters. And that’s why you think something is missing from your encounter design and why you try to fill the void by turning to prescribed actions and overdesigned mechanics.
And that’s why I’ll be back in a few days to reexamine that cliff-climbing encounter – and encounter building in general – and to teach you two important skills that affect both how you design encounters and how you run them. And even though I’m going to crank that article out right away, I’d like you to consider maybe not reading it immediately. Maybe try running an encounter or three without any special rules or prescribed actions. Maybe even run a combat that way. No initiative. No action economy. Nothing.
But you aren’t going to do that. I know you; I read the comment section. Half of you are going to be too busy telling me that you ain’t got no problem and you can run games without special encounter mechanics any time you want. You just like it better with the mechanics. And what’s wrong with having a little fun anyway? You work hard all week. You deserve to unwind.
Fine. Whatever. At least I tried. That’s what matters. I took the blame for being an enabler, but whatever happens from here on out is your own stupid fault. Rehab’s in a few days. Come if you want.
Excited to go to rehab. Not that I have a problem or anything >.>. I just wanna hear what you have to say to all the other junkies.
I believe people tend to immediately ask about in-depth/complex mechanics as a crutch. It makes it “easier” to make decision based on what the players do. It also gives that false sense of security that you’re not “making the wrong call”.
But as you said it makes for rigid players and GMs besides also slowing down gameplay.
The first question they ask is the how and not the what.
I love ending a fight a round before one side had zero HP, thought this was what we were talking about when I read the title.- I like mechanics for stuff because I think my on the spot adjudication is soft on players- and setting up DCs before hand helps keep it challenging. I also run combat without initiative often. One character announces an action and I have the players do something and then have the monsters respond. Saves about 2 minutes and lets everyone know that the rules are my head.
As I understand it, this article is about the dangers of too much complexity (and/or reliance on complex mechanics). With that in mind, should encounters with more weight (such as a climactic battle) generally use more complex mechanics, such as the D&D 5e combat engine, or should the aim be getting a good encounter without it?
I think it’s not about too much complesxity per-se, but rather about relying on a ruleset instead of more fundamental GM skills to make an encounter memorable. The things that make a good encounter (memorable, exciting) can’t be simulated just by applying more rules. In fact, too many rules can and will strangle the encounter.
I don’t think there should be any correlation between complexity and how climactic the encounter is. High stakes (someone’s death, end of the world, etc) and high investment (we’ve spent the whole adventure getting to this point!) are what make something more climactic. The most climactic moment in my current campaign was a single attack roll. My players managed to get a poison that would paralyze someone for 10min, and they had a chance to shoot an arrow dipped in it at their current biggest adversary, who has been making them miserable for multiple adventures. There was a big combat around it, but that one shot was the important part, and could have easily existed without the combat. The player rolled a critical, by the way. It was amazing.
You may want to draw out big moments of tension a bit more, (By doing the three successes before three failures thing instead of a single check, for example) but I think, if anything, you should avoid complex mechanics around big moments. You want the players worrying about the stakes, not the rules.
My personal reasoning is that I just don’t work well without being told what to do. I’ve overcome a lot of it, but it’s always finnicky as hell.
As always, this has been something I’ve been thinking on. From different directions, for different reasons, yet here we are.
Excited to see the rest.
I learned a saying in the Army, “an obstacle not covered by fire is not an obstacle.” The cliff climb/descent is only meaningful if there is a cost for failure and/or a benefit to fast success. S’why the stakes concept. You got no stakes? The party can take as much time as they need to get to the goal, no dice rolling needed, no drama, boring game.
Always design your stakes first, leave mechanics a distant second. And refer back to your goal and central conflict while you’re at it. You should find inspiration for your stakes there.
Been running a horror/mystery game set in a boarding school using nothing but d20 rolls and simplified ability scores and skill list (and DCs). And an in-game calendar. Sort of. Not really mechanical, just a way to keep track of how long time has passed in-game, with certain events happening on certain days. I feel like something’s been missing from this simplified system (bargaining with the players maybe?) though so I’m looking forward to the other article from the other direction.
Huh, I would have had a problem, because I was looking for more mechanical assistance for encounters…. but the best games I ran were in 2nd edition, and we just made $#!* up as needed, and I mostly ran off the cuff. I guess my wrong way wasn’t so bad….
If I were designing that cliff encounter, my instinct would be to perform two additional design steps beyond your initial description of the challenge:
1. I’d force myself to think of at least three to five different ways the players might try to solve the challenge. If I struggled to think of sufficiently varied approaches, I’d want to add elements to create more options. The cliff suggests at least three basic approaches: free climbing, using a rope, and crafting a harness or contraption to assist. That seems a little on the sparse side, so I might try to think of elements that could be added to open other paths, such as mentioning some fallen logs during the initial description.
2. I’d brainstorm another list of complications, hazards, or obstacles that might disrupt their plans. In this case, that list might include a loose boulder or rockslide, handholds that might break away, a sharp rock that threatens to cut through a taut rope, and vermin such as snakes or birds that might harass the characters as they make the descent.
I wouldn’t go any further than jotting down those lists, though; I wouldn’t try to assign DCs or invent mechanics or anything — just try to prime the pump with interesting directions the challenge might go.
Indeed, this has been my general approach to *all* game design — whether working as a professional video game developer or as a hobbyist GM, and whether designing a fight, an obstacle, or a conversation; I try to simulate a couple iterations of the playtest-and-redesign loop without running real-life players through the scenario. It helps work out kinks, ensure there are interesting choices, and provides a ready-made list of tension-raising complications to draw on at the table.
While I don’t think this process “drowns in mechanics,” it probably still introduces the bias you describe (in favor of solutions I’ve already considered). Are you suggesting bias toward particular solutions is inherently problematic, or just another thing to be aware of when designing?
This seems to be a good approach. I may be missing the point (to not use complex subsystems) but perhaps the Tension Pool could be applied to this challenge, so your complications list could be the Complications list. And it might solve @Ralph Judkin ‘s problem of players doing the in-world long and tedious thing.
I don’t know. What do you think?
Tim, I like your idea of adding some granularity to the description and brainstorming possible outcomes. Essentially you are adding possible decision points. I think description is a good way to fire the players’ creativity at the risk of either guiding them toward a solution or boring them with detail.
One alternative possibility is to improvise those details when your players ask questions, however, I think it’s important to train your players to ask for further details, or just prompt them to ask questions. That way they know there can be additional information outside your initial description.
To your point on bias, it seems like having some bias towards particular solutions is inevitable. I can’t imagine introducing an obstacle without imagining any way the PCs might overcome it.
The issue could be that by designing and explaining mechanics to the players, you bias the players as well. I think that one of the most interesting things about running games is seeing how the players deal with your obstacles, and you could lose that if you give them choice A or B.
One final thing that I think is important to consider in encounter design is how the encounter fits into the adventure as a whole. For example, why is this cliff descent an encounter? If there is no consequence to taking the long way round or for taking damage by falling then there isn’t much need to do the encounter. Perhaps players could get lost, or the enemy could flee, or they could face an attack in the ravine, etc. Don’t get me wrong, choices don’t have to all be equivalent, but they have to affect the players’ likelihood of achieving their goals otherwise there isn’t any purpose.
I think there something to be said about resource cost here too, in terms of time, supplies, or opportunities but I’ll let Angry write what he’s going to as I’m no expert.
I don’t find that your first step is necessary for non-puzzle and non-magic encounters and obstacles. If something is rooted in the real world(even slightly), then it almost definitely can be solved in various ways. It’s when pure magic (which functionally means pure game mechanics) is all you’ve got that you need to work harder to make sure there are multiple solutions.
I think it really only is an issue if you get attached to your solutions, since that will make it harder to accept alternatives. That way leads to the dark side.
There’s an encounter I like to run called “unsafe bridge” which is exactly what it sounds like except halfway across a goblin pops out and starts shooting. There are a lot of ways the characters can get from one end to the other, and usually someone falls in the gorge. I always feel bad saying “you have chosen to run across the unsafe bridge — make a skill check or fall 60 feet onto hard rocks”. Do you think I should spell out that that might happen in advance, besides describing the reality of the scene?
Andrew, this depends on your style. Personally I think if you describe the bridge as decrepit, its on the player, especially if they run. If they ask whether they might fall I’d tell them that it’s possible. I might play up the creaking planks and rotted ropes to make it clear.
Some GMs would immediately say that it looks like the bridge might collapse as soon as you see it. That’s fine too.
If your players do something that to your GM minds eye is incredibly dangerous then you should probably let them know. “If you do this you might fall” would be a fair enough warning.
I know that one of my pet peeves as a player is when I try something based on my perception of the scene and the GM informs me via consequences that I was wrong about what I perceived. Communication is hard, so don’t be afraid of clarifying the risk if you don’t think it was properly understood.
I’m new to DnD and extremely new to DMing. I just finished my first mini campaign (about 20 hours of play) and this article made me reassess how it went.
I realize that the “big” encounters that I had plotted out all the ways they could go and how to respond to different things the players did wound up being boring. And I see that when the players deviated from what I wanted the encounter to be, I “nudged” them back toward my version of the story.
The few great moments that existed in the game were encounters that I had basically said this is the situation and then just flew by the seat of my pants. For baddies and/or npcs I just played it as I thought the character would respond. These were much more entertaining and free.
That all being said, I think running through various encounters on your own and how you would respond to players actions is a great exercise.
As Eisenhower (and others) have stated: “plans are worthless, but planning is everything”.
That said, big, very prepared encounters aren’t necessarily doomed to be boring. It’s just another tool in you DM toolbox. Recently, I’ve played both really freeform, system-light games and big combat-heavy one-shots with all the DnD combat mechanics, and these achieve really different things.
Thing is, there’s a real trade-off with mechanics: on one side, you have a lot of flexibility, but you are constrained by how creative you can get on the moment. On the other, your encounters get more rigid, but the rules also gives a structure that allow your brainpower to go somewhere else.
Obviously, there is some balance to strike between those two things, but that balance shifts according with what I’m trying to do, and probably shifts from GM to GM. But I think both improv and running system-heavier encounters are hard but valuable skills to get as a GM.
As a new gm it’s OK to nudge people or even just tell them to follow the adventure. You’ve got enough on your plate getting to grips with running the game, improvising half a session because the players go wandering off into the wilderness for example is too much to ask at that point.
You could probably handle it much better now than 3 sessions ago.
I’ve actually been trying to do this exact thing for a year. I have one player in particular who is convinced the only form of depth has to come from mechanics, is prone to wild multiclassing trying to get the options he wants to change his build path every time he thinks of a new personality trait he wants the character to have, and has to play a completely ‘unique’ character. I suggested why doesn’t he just take the abilities he wants and turn them into a class and let me deal with the rest (for my own sanity).
“That wouldn’t be balanced”.
It hurts my heart.
I will note that all the players in my groups that have trouble with the idea of separating mechanics from the character’s personality all were introduced to D&D in 3rd edition or later. They can’t fathom how you can play two different characters with the same mechanics differently. When I explain how I have played a human cleric any time I get to play since 2nd ed they look confused.
We are starting a new campaign in June, and I pretty much told them either we play Five Torches Deep (of which they are horrified at the lack of character options and, God Forbid, rolling THREE D6 with no way to eliminate negative bonuses) or we learn to play a 5E character properly.
The party now consists of Geralt (BUT TOTALLY UNIQUE BECAUSE XYZ!!), A cleric who was functionally ejected from her temple for getting a bit too close to discovering some corruption, and an eladrin elf who was wronged, murdered the wrongdoer, enjoyed it, went insane, and now hears voices and talks to a hand puppet to stay sane who is also a ranger.
Planning the plot arcs for this has been a blast.
This is just about the most reassuring thing I’ve ever read about GMing. I like the idea of finding a comfortable balance between mechanics and story, that the mechanics don’t have to take over and you don’t have to spend forever on them. Thank you.
This article is pure gold, and it goes straight to the point of why some people love old D&D: less defined mechanics and more reliance on the DM’s rulings and player’s creativity than on stats on a character sheet. Thanks Angry.
I think that was one of your best rambling intros in a while! Very funny! I definitely struggle with this. My current party has challenged me in a lot of ways, and this is one of them. I actually ran your chase encounter with slight variations in the beginning of this campaign, and even the basic mechanical additions in that was enough to frustrate them. They’ve been teaching me to simplify mechanics down to the bare minimum.
That said, the running from combat thing is still something I want a better mechanic for. I’ve tried a few things, and so far, everything feels too complicated/over-designed – exactly like you’re discussing in this article. I’m trending gradually towards a simple opposed Athletics Check, but I want something that feels a little crunchier since it’s so integrated with combat. It feels wrong to me to have everyone on a grid and then say, “Well, they won the Athletics contest, so they’re gone now. Better luck next time.”
You didn’t say which system. For 3.5, I suggest adapting the spur mount rules from page 80 of the Player’s Handbook. Instead of spurring your mount with Ride checks, you spur yourself with Balance checks.
13th Age has a really great mechanic for running from combat. I actually used to use it long before that game came out, but running 3.5 and PF1 for several years made me forget I was allowed to do stuff like that.
If the players want to run from combat, they succeed.
That’s it. If they want to run, they do. They suffer a “narrative failure” or something like that – basically they lose whatever was at stake in that encounter or potentially in the entire adventure. If you find yourself asking “well what if there are no consequences for running?” then you’ve built the encounter poorly and that’s your fault not theirs.
Back in my youth I used to call it the “Final Fantasy Rule”. In the older FF games you could run from any fight you wanted except boss fights. You would probably take some damage on the way out, but at least 99 times out of a hundred you got away.
I didn’t read your whole comment. I committed the cardinal sin of the reply box. I thought you were worried about how the PCs could run away from stuff. If bad guys want to run away I use a slightly more complicated system.
“The bad guys are attempting to run away. What do you do?”
Most of the time, they’ll let the last goblin or two run off into the wilderness. On the occasion they want to chase the last one I let them catch them if they’re the same speed, or just don’t if the quarry is faster. Or I’ll say that they have X rounds until the quarry gets to safety – whether that means the treeline, water, or just something as simple as out of visibility or bowshot. If it’s in a dungeon, I don’t have to worry about it. The escapee just goes into the next area and it’s no big deal.
In an urban environment it’s harder, but just put your GM hat on and make some rulings and adjudicate some actions. “You chase the pirate out the back door of the tavern, but you can’t tell where they’ve gone. What do you do?” or “… and you see them duck into a nearby building. What do you do?”
And really what’s wrong with “they’re faster/more athletic than you so they got away?” That’s what happens when someone who is faster or more athletic is involved in a chase.
I saw a definite mechanics bias develop in the players back in the 3.5 days. Players started to think that if they didn’t have a feat or skill that covered something that there was no point in attempting it. 5th Edition seems to have made it easier to just try something. I call that a positive change.
Except you don’t know how that something is going to work since the rules have so many holes. How can I decide what my character wants to do if my knowledge of the game world is full of holes, things the rules don’t cover? I don’t see how this is making it easier. At least for people like me, it’s made it *far* harder, because I have no framework to base my understanding of the game (and game world) on.
This is my fundamental problem with 5e, and rules-light systems in general. I don’t know how (or whether) something is going to work because there are so many gaps in the rules. As an example, what does intimidate do in 5e? *Concretely*, though, what does it do? Okay, you say, that’s a social skill, D&D has historically been bad at those. That’s fine, I’ll give you that–but that doesn’t mean 5e can get away with not fixing it. Let’s try Sleight of Hand. How do I adjudicate that as a DM? How do I gauge how likely I am to be successful as a player? There’s nothing in the books to help with that. How does not giving players information make things easier?
I keep talking with people about this. They repeatedly say “make it fun” or “make it fair” or something similar, but when pressed to explain more, are completely unable to. I must be missing something critically fundamental that these people have no problem with, but I cannot at all identify it despite years of effort.
I think the key there, anhata, is to make a ruling (best you can in the moment) and make it consistent. If that ruling doesn’t work out after some time be honest with players about the fact that you need to change it.
The argument for mechanical simplicity comes back here so it’s easier to remember the ruling the next time that situation comes up.
Most importantly, you should encourage players to ask questions about the actions they intend to take. I have no problem telling players that sleight of hand against the guard will be an opposed DEX vs Wis check with disadvantage because the guard is suspicious. I would tell them that before they decide to take the action (particularly if they ask about chances) and then let them decide whether the risks are worth it.
That sort of information helps to bridge the differences in imagined worlds and keep people on the same page.
It sounds like you’re looking at this backwards, though. You want to create a mapping from all of the abilities in a game to what concrete in-world actions /effects are possible. 5e and other systems recognize that’s what’s much more important is the reverse process: mapping every in-world action/effect that you can imagine back onto some game rule that can be used to decide the outcome. Obviously, there’s an infinite number of characters and scenarios, so the the focus is on (a) coming up with a sufficient toolbox of target game rules for DMs to map onto and (b) making sure DMs have the skills to do that mapping (aka “adjudication”) in a way that feels good and fair to the players.
It’s absolutely okay if there isn’t consistency between DMs in how they do the mapping because there are often multiple mappings that meet the “feels good” and “fair” criteria, and it doesn’t necessarily matter if one is biased a little more towards the players and DM. But to get there the DM has to provide sufficient feedback when people want to do things such that they aren’t super surprised by that DM’s choice, structure play to provide opportunities for players to back out before rolling if it’s clear there’s a mismatch between player/DM understandings of risk (based on what the character knows, of course), and so on. There are lots of tips and tricks for doing that well, but it’s also going to be different depending on who is at the table, what style of game you’re playing, etc. Which is fine!
This is what came up when my players declared actions and I tried to adjudicate them only to find the rules utterly silent on what happens. Are you saying we’re playing the game wrong?
You don’t just “do a sleight of hand”. The player has a goal. Pretend to drink the probably poisoned wine but really dump it into the potted plant. Slam your hands onto the mayors desk while making an impassioned speech, but really palm the key on his desk. If its unclear what the player is trying to accomplish, ask them. If they can’t answer, there’s no need for a check. You don’t just intimidate somebody for the heck of it. You want them to do something, or give you something, or tell you something, or run away.
How hard is it to fake drinking wine? Probably not very? How many people are watching? Do they suspect you’re on to them? If the player is having trouble gauging the factors in play, they should ask. Am I being watched closely? These questions can get you and the players roughly on the same page: “everyone is distracted (DC 5 or autosuccess?) vs. “everybody in the room is staring at you, waiting for you to drink the wine” (DC 15-20?).
If the check passes, you adjudicate by giving the player what they wanted. If the check fails, you decide what that means. Does a failed intimidation make the other side hostile and recalcitrant? Or can they continue to be reasoned with? Do they just outright attack? Does it depend on how bad a failure it was? All valid interpretations. As the DM you’re trying to pick the option with versimilitude, or that would be the most interesting in the situation. Like if the scene is dragging, I’m more inclined to make a failed check just end this scene. If the opening gambit is an intimidation check that fails, I might give the players a chance to redeem themselves.
Angry wrote a great article on that topic a while ago about precisely that question. One of the things DnD isn’t great for is explaining it’s core mechanic and how to use it, so someone else had to do it. Go check it out, if you haven’t read it yet: https://theangrygm.com/adjudicate-actions-like-a-boss/
Looking forward to rehab, doc. I will give the rules-lite encounter a try, though I’m afraid there’s gonna be chaos.
I get making home brew rules is bad sometimes but making rules to elevate encounters is good but you completely discredited the GM or DMs who do it well. You contradict yourself so much that I wonder how people take you seriously.
I suspect you missed quite a bit of nuance here.
Additional mechanics can enrich the game but they come at a cost. There is a balance to be found and he makes the point that this balance is missing with many people.
Whenever authors repeatedly discuss issues that require balance they’re inevitably going to contradict themselves.
Special mechanics can be great but, to quote one of my favourite podcasters, “there’s a little dichotomy there..”
Everyone should try our mechanic rehab. On the occasion that nobody is able to run a campaign, anyone in our group can make a oneshot adventure in our modern mercenary setting. We have no skills. We write backrounds, and during an encounter GM sets a number based on that background. Players can elaborate on their background to get a bonus on a roll, if it’s plausible. We have “karma points” for a few rerolls. That’s it. You can even play it on a deserted island with nothing but dices with you. We have. After that you remember what the mechanics are for. They support the illusion, that you are in a “real” world. If the mechanic makes the situation sound weird, you bend it to work in the encounter.
Don’t be so hard on yourself. Yes you showed your love for mechanics but in some articles you showed me how i was a stupid butt head for overcomplicating stuff. I think the trigger was your worldbuilding article and i started to question all the stupid preps i was doing. Then i was like “alright i’ll say i’ll do a one shot to some players but i have close to no time to prep it” and i was the best thing ever to do. Not “not prepping”. Because I did prep. But I focused on usefull things. Not trying to find mechanics or details that no one cares about.
Can’t wait for rehab but still, you did a pretty good job.
Ok, I admit it, I was hitting up every seedy reddit spot I could find to get my mechanic fix for every possible situation in the game. I was starting to realise I had a problem and needed to simplify things. And then this article came out and confirmed it. But I also feel like trying to simplify things too much might lead to combat mechanics for combat, skill checks for everything else.